MindShare hires Smallwood for Ford task

Campaign 17-Jun-05, 15:35

Mike Smallwood, the former European chief executive of Western International Media, is returning to the agency world with a job at MindShare, running its £700 million Ford of Europe account.

Smallwood, 46, replaces Phil Cowdell, who is going on sabbatical before returning to take on new account responsibilities at the agency. He joins MindShare from his own management consultancy, The Smallwood Consultancy.

Smallwood came to prominence at the end of the 80s when he was made the media director of Lowe Howard-Spink. In 1990, he became the group media director of Lowe Group Europe, which later became Western International Media. He was appointed its first chief executive.

After leaving Western in 1998, Smallwood joined Flextech Television as its senior vice-president of marketing. He was promoted to managing director of Flextech's business and strategy department after one year with the company and was given responsibility for renegotiating carriage deals and for overseeing the transformation of its sales division into an independent entity.

Nick Emery, the chief strategic officer at MindShare Worldwide, said: "One of our challenges as we grow is to bring people into the company who will help us grow and who are as good as the talent we have - given we have the best talent pool in the business, this was a tough brief and Mike an exceptional best candidate."